To:N. I. BUKHARIN

Published:First published in 1965 inCollected Works, Fifth (Russian) Ed., Vol. 54.

      Printed from the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1976,

      Moscow,Volume 45,

      page564a.Translated:Yuri SdobnikovTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet ArchiveYou may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

ComradeBukharin:

Ihave read (inSotsialistichesky Vestnik) Gorky’s vile
letter.[2]At first I thought of attacking him in the press
(over the S.R.s), but then decided that this would he too
much. Let us consult about this. Perhaps you see him
now and then and talk with him? Please, write me your
opinion. I have seen few newspapers (almost no foreign
ones). This means that I have scant knowledge of the
“situation”. Write me your opinion in the greatest possible
detail.

Bestregards from all of us to your wife and yourself.

Yours,Lenin

P.S.I am almost well.

P.S.I am writing toKrestinskyto get me theoriginalof Gorky’s letter published inSotsialistichesky Vestnikof
20/VII.1922.[1]

Ifhe forgets, will you send it along.

[1]SeeCollected Works, Fifth (Russian) Edition, Vol. 54,
Document 444.—Ed.

[2]Areference to Maxim Gorky’s letter to Anatole France on July 3,
1922, over the trial of the Socialist-Revolutionaries on charges
of counter-revolutionary activity. Gorky missed the essence of
the case, and wrote that the trial was a preparation for “the
murder of people who had sincerely served the cause of the Russian
people’s emancipation”, and asked France to write to the Soviet
Government to tell them that it was “intolerable to allow the
crime”. Perhaps, “your weighty word will save the valuable
lives of socialists”. He also sent France a copy of his letter on
this question to Deputy Chairman of the C.P.C., A. I. Rykov,warning that the passage of death sentences on the accused
would result “in a moral blockade of Russia by socialist Europe”.